She’s enlightened and virtuous, you see, and those who favor the change are callous brutes. And she wants everyone to know it.

A Republican member of the JBC, Rep. Cheri Gerou, demanded an apology, but you can guess where that went. House Minority Leader Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, who is partial to self-righteous rhetoric himself, said he had “no problem” with what Duran said. Of course he wouldn’t.

Building a budget with limited resources is an exercise in hard choices, where reasonable and equally compassionate people can disagree. And while budgets may reflect moral priorities or at least values, it’s a sanctimonious stretch to suggest that colleagues who have a different idea of how to allocate resources are morally challenged.